Hey everybody, it’s time again to dig deep into the NAB mailbag, grubbing around in the psyches of the psychos sickos cherished readers who write me (hey! where’s YOUR letter, huh?), and coming out smelling clean.

I meditate 4 hours a day, every day.  I get up at 5 am so I can meditate for 2 hours before work, then I make sure I get home in time to meditate another 2 hours, every day.  Why am I not enlightened?  And why am I not getting girlfriends? Signed, Buddhist, Long and Hard

Dear BLAH,

Dude. It’s not quantity but quality that counts (not the same as “size doesn’t matter,” but we’ll get to that later). You’re spending four hours every day meditating? Shit man, if you were any good at it, you’d be levitating by now. But no. You have expectations. And those will kill you every time.

You want enlightenment? Do you even know what it is? Sad to say, most meditators and New Age crystal-sniffers haven’t a clue. It’s something about transcending one’s body, they think. Ascension. Being one with the … something-that-sounds-deep-and-wise.

That’s bleh, BLAH. Also it’s crap.

We are not here to figure out a way to be not-here. In other words, we don’t go through all the crap of living in a body (have you thought about some of the mechanics here? Pooping, for instance? Whoever came up with that had a bitching sense of humor) just to figure out a way to not need that body anymore. Nope, we are “here” — in these ridonkulous bodies living on this awesome planet — to figure out how to really love being “here.”

And you can’t get that from sitting with your legs all twisted into a pretzel.

Enlightenment comes through LIVING, BLAH. Living and eating ripe mangoes and smelling fresh-baked bread and making people smile and fucking up. And fucking, period. Living is a way to love living. Also you will be having a lot more sex if you’re not om-ing all day sitting on a fucking pillow sniffing incense.

Go out into the world, BLAH. Hang out where people are (not like a stalker, but like a fellow human.). Take regular showers. Wear something that’s not a World of Warcraft t-shirt.

Get a life.

Love, Bitch

All right, the devastating earthquake in Haiti isn’t breaking news anymore, but the Bitch would be cold and heartless indeed if she didn’t weigh in on what some short-sighted or incredibly idealistic headline writer is calling “The Disaster of the Century.” (After all, we still have 90 years to go, and even though the Doomsday Clock was just ratcheted down by a minute, we’re still seven minutes away from complete and total annihilation by a bunch of fuckwads, so let’s not forget that.)

But you can’t call yourself human and not feel something at the sudden (and probably horribly painful) deaths of a huge number of people. Numbers are impossible to estimate at this point, but they’re talking 50,000 – 100,000. People. Dead. That’s the size of a decent city. And THREE MILLION people in Haiti are affected by the earthquake in some way. Tons are homeless. Their tarpaper-and-spit shacks collapsed, not exactly being up to earthquake building code requirements. And now they’ve got nothing.

So, total dickwads like Pat Fucking Robertson aside (really? Haiti is cursed because it made a pact with the devil? is that the best you could come up with, Pat?), where do the rest of us stand on Haiti?

1. Fact. Haiti is a dinky country located where it’s hot and humid much of the time.

2. Fact. Despite being the first independent nation in Latin America, which sounds all civilized and shit, Haiti — like most of the world — has had an incredibly fucked-up history including pirates, slavery, smallpox, revolution, more slavery, dictatorships, coups, crushing poverty for most and incredible wealth for a few, and US military occupation.

3. Is this a reason to ignore Haiti? Most of us haven’t been there, have no family ties there, have enough shit to worry about…

Three fucking million people. That’s about how many Presbyterians live in the U.S., living right next door. You’d help them, right? But here, have a look at these photos. People’s homes. Lives. Gone. If you’re breathing, you’ll feel something here. Fucking help Haiti.

So, what’s it gonna be? Don’t give me any shit here. Three easy ways to send help to Haiti:

1. RIGHT NOW, you can text “Yele” to 501501 to donate $5 to Yele Haiti. It’ll be charged to your phone. Yele Haiti is a foundation created by musician Wyclef Jean to help impoverished people in his home country. So easy. Just fucking do it. (Hint: this works more than once.)

2. So you can get into this texting for Haiti thing, right? Then text “Haiti” to 90999 and you’ll be sending $10 to the Red Cross. Not as hip as Wyclef Jean, but whatever.

3. Want to give money the old-fashioned way? Fine. CARE is focusing on rescuing children trapped in the rubble of the schools they were attending when the quake hit. Next, they’ll focus on bringing water and food to those who need it. OXFAM is another highly respected aid organization, focusing for now on getting clean water to quake victims.

Go on. Go. What are you waiting for? Already gave money yesterday? Fine, great. Then give up your latte today and DO IT AGAIN.

I am brilliant. You knew that already, but dude. I am fucking BRILLIANT.

You know this world peace thing that has people holding hands and kumbayah-ing all over the place? It even has the evil corporate sellouts Starbucks on board with a trite-but-effective Hallmark moment on Youtube.

What? The Starbucks thing was for African AIDS awareness? Oh, whatever. SAME FUCKING THING.

Jeez.

Where was I?

Oh, right. The world peace bullshit. C’mon, people, we grow through conflict. Hasn’t anyone ever mentioned that before? “Turn the other cheek” never meant be a pussy and walk away from potential conflict, it meant BRING IT, BRO! BRING ME SOME ASS TO KICK!

But hey, I can profane the Bible in so many other ways. We’re talking world peace shit here.

Which I have a solution for.

Sure, I think the whole idea of peace is a little silly. After all, war gives people something to do. It helps keep the population down. It gives people something to fret about. It causes shitloads of karma. That stuff can’t be bad, right? I mean, without war we’d be, like, happy or something.

But hey, have it your way. And because I’m brilliant I have the solution. To end war.

Inflatable boxing gloves.

BOP. Put a pair of these bad boys on and whack away. Think about it: your boss, your wife, the dude with 11 items in the 10-items-or-less line. You name it. BOP. Conflict ENDED, man.

Issue a pair of these to every man, woman, and child (and the ambiguously-gendered; wouldn’t want to leave anyone out here) and you have your world peace within about two weeks. Just insist that any conflict be resolved with the inflatable boxing gloves or we’ll be cutting balls off.

Simple.

Effective.

So. Fucking. Brilliant.

Okay, people, it’s time to clear this up. What the eff is “New Age ” anyway? Chanting om all day? Wearing patchouli and letting your armpits go European? Yoga? Crystals? Tantric sex?

Nah.

New Age is the catchall term some fuckwad started applying to the idea that Old = Bad and New = Good, sometime around the Harmonic Convergence. Remember that? That was the day in 1987 when we were all going to get aligned and shit and life was going to be awesome afterward. Seems like somebody forgot about some of the un-awesome stuff that’s happened since then, like George W. Bush and orange alerts.

(Apologies, by the way, to the before-his-time William Blake, who applied the term “New Age” in the preface to a long-ass poem about John Milton, in which Milton battles Satan and Blake merges with a twelve-year old girl who’s really him. Awesome stuff. But Blake’s New Age didn’t have patchouli’d armpits in it.)

Old = Bad

Dogmatic religions, for example. They’re definitely bad. New Age devotees shun religion like it’s raw liver left out on a hot sidewalk (which used to be a part of many ritual ceremonies, but that’s beside the point), preferring to replace their Catholic rosary with a Buddhist mala.

(Hint: those are both prayer beads.)

See? Old is bad. New is good. Repeat after me.

Some old religions are allowed. Buddhism is a must, because it’s way cool and hip. Also Buddhism is often confused with  vegetarianism, which is favored by New Agers who hate eating anything with a face.

Hinduism presents more of a problem for most New Agers.  While it scores points for vegetarianism (good), it had a lot of gods, which is confusing (bad). New Agers like the idea in concept of multiple gods (some with lots of arms! some are animals! they have sex!) which is a big fuck-you to the Big White Dude in the sky with a long white beard and a long white robe, but the whole thing gets tiring after a while (bad). New Agers can’t tell one god from another, except that one is an elephant and one is a monkey. Aside from them, the gods sound to New Agers like a big feuding family who all has sex with one another, and that just hits too close to home.

Speaking of everyone in the family having sex with one another, New Agers also don’t like the idea of multiple spouses as in some fundamentalist religions like extreme Mormonism and Islam. Ew! They say, How positively medieval! Yet, call it polyamory and everybody’s okay with it — it even gets its own HBO show.

New = Good

New, like crystals. You know, rocks? That have been in the ground for centuries? Yeah. Those are new. Nobody ever thought to pick one up before the Harmonic Convergence, when we all wore quartz crystals on our foreheads to raise our vibration.

New also means yoga, preferably in a hot sweaty room. Like before there was air conditioning. See, new!

New also means music, preferably using instruments that have been around for thousands of years. Drums and flutes. (The electronic barfplosion that was New Age music in the 1980’s doesn’t count.)

Oh come off it, who am I kidding? There’s nothing new. It’s really about getting back to what’s old-old. Old = Bad but Really Fucking Old = Good. See?

Examples:

1. Tree worshiping. Or hugging. Same thing.

2. Sustainable living. Didn’t ALL living used to be sustainable? Because if it wasn’t sustainable, you just starved?

3. Astrology. Cuz the stars and stuff have only been around a few gazillion years or whatever.

4. Vegetarians, vegans, and fasting. In the old-old days, if you had meat you ate it. if not you didn’t. If you didn’t have food you fasted. Simple, eh? How spiritual.

5. Worshiping the feminine. As if pole-dancing wasn’t evidence of this?

And the granddaddy of them all:

Book sales and workshops. Because where would we be if we didn’t have people telling us where to go?

There you have it. The Bitch’s Guide to the New Age. You’re welcome. Now go grow out your patchouli pits.

One little-known fact about me is that I carry my home around me on my back like a hermit crab. Yep, that’s me with dishes, pots, pans, tampons, and a Wii strapped to my back. Purty sight, ain’t it? After all, its not like I’m pushing around a rusty shopping cart filled with random plastic bags or anything. Swearsies! And my stuff keeps the rain off.

But once in awhile I like a roof over my head and to shower the bugs off, so I check into the Marriott or the W or sometimes even the Ritz-Carlton, because I like a place where the maids look you in the eye like they’re people, too. Plus they know your name.

Good evening, Ms. Bitch! they say as I waltz past in my 4-inch red stilettos. I stare at a place on the wallpaper until the maid passes. Nobody’s going to suck out my brains by looking me in the eye, nossir!

But hotels are teh awesome. Let’s elaborate, shall we?

1. Archaeology. I got my degrees in rocket science and brain surgery with archaeology well down the list, but I still maintain a layman’s interest. What better way to study Early Man than with the stains on the never-washed bedspreads? Admittedly, some are difficult to identify, which is why I carry a blacklight with me. Makes every stain glow vividly, especially the ones from bodily fluids. Which is most of them. Sometimes I amuse myself by playing Connect The Dots. Or conducting an impromptu Rorschach test.

2. Psychology. In addition to enhancing my personal self-awareness through staring at the stains on the bedspread (they’re never washed. Have I mentioned that?), I also study other people. I start by dialing random room numbers in the hotel, informing my next-door neighbor, for instance, that there’s a package awaiting him at the front desk. Then while he’s out I go in his room and steal everything in the minibar. Or carry a universal TV remote with you while you slowly walk the halls and and punch on/off repeatedly.

3. Statistics. Hotels are a guessing game. When was the carpet last cleaned? How many long black hairs will I find in the sink? Was my non-smoking room last used by a pack of chain smokers? These are fun and enlightening questions to ask yourself whenever you check in to a hotel. Keep track of your score and win prizes!

4. Location, location, location. My last hotel was situated next to an adult store, I kid you not. Score! I’d go back there in a heartbeat.

5. Paying extra for things. Like Wi-Fi. $12.00 PER COMPUTER? Sure, no prob. Or the whole minibar thing. I love a $4 pack of M&M’s. Pretty soon you’ll be paying for air. Not air conditioning. Actual air.

6. Things that smell like… Chlorine-bleached sheets. The aforementioned bedspreads (I warned you, did I not?). Skanky slivers of soap the exact size and usefulness of your tongue. Generic Hotel Cleaner Stuff, the kind that is in use by hotels worldwide and also in prisons (not that I would know, cough). Last night’s pizza-delivery grease-fest wafting through the elevator. The cologne-soaked loser in the hotel bar with a badly-fitting rug up top and a gold chain the size of his penis draped around his neck.

7. Surly desk clerks. You know, the 17-year olds with acne explosions like pink grapefruit hanging off their cheeks? Yeah, them. The ones who dare to claim trumped up charges for in-room porn. What? Me? I make porn, honey, I don’t watch it.

8. It’s Motel 6, dammit, not Motel $139.99. Whatever happened to the 6?

Wanna come stay at my house? I promise I’ll only charge you 3 bucks for the M&M’s.

Oh, fuck. Might as well stay home.

As a spiritual practitioner, I get all kinds of clients. (You might say it takes all kinds, but that’s beside the point.) for the most part these are people who have begun to make thoughtful choices in their lives, and who are looking to consult a higher perspective in order to get the tools with which to make increasingly conscious choices in the future.

Fine.

Those people don’t suck.

Nor do they really need my help, much. They’re looking for a nudge and that’s what they get, a nice big hearty nudge that sends them off in the direction they want to go.

I love those people.

Then there are the Fix Mes. Whatever the problem, whether it’s Mommy Issues or Daddy Issues or body issues or self-flagellation issues, or if they just haven’t been laid in three years, these are the people who Just Want to Be Fixed.

NOW.

FIX ME NOW. Their puppy eyes gaze back at me over my crystal ball. FIX ME NOW. PLEASE.

The thing is, most of us want to be fixed. And now. Fix. Me. Now.

The other thing is, it’s not that simple.

I knew there was a catch! Dammit Bitch. What do I have to do, anyway? Work for it? I have to work for it don’t I? It takes 7 years? Fine, I’ll wait. 7 years. Just fix me now, willya? Just a little? Pretty please?

Yeah, well, no. It doesn’t work that way.

It’s not that healing doesn’t take work, because it often does. It doesn’t have to, but most of you love self-inflicted pain, so off you go making things harder for yourself than you have to.

But the main problem is that when you offer your tender white throat up on the sacrificial block to be fixed by whatever high priestess you desire (and I look smashing in high priestess garb), you GIVE YOUR FREAKING POWER AWAY.

And how many times have we talked about that?

When you start thinking of yourself as

a) broken, and

b) incapable of fixing yourself, you end up becoming

c) fucked,

because there is nothing anyone else can do TO YOU that you cannot already do for yourself.

BROKEN + HELPLESS = FUCKED

The Quick Fix, i.e. Lose Ten Pounds in 3 Days! does not exist. Whatever “fix” you receive from another person is like crack. You know about Workshop Junkies, don’t you? People who adore going to spiritual or self-help or motivational workshops? They zoom into all that collective juice and come away thinking they are going to CHANGE and BE HEALED and TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, but then a few days or a couple of weeks go by and things look about the same. The sky is gray and dull again and lines are long and traffic is slow and there’s never any parking. And people suck and hell, THINGS DIDN’T CHANGE WTF? And then they sign up for another workshop so they can CHANGE and BE HEALED.

Is that what you want?

I’m not saying that the alternative is all about crying and tantrums and painful childhood revelations. It doesn’t have to be.

But when you stop asking to be fixed, you stop thinking of yourself as broken.

And when you stop thinking of yourself as broken, stuff magically heals.

So put that in your 2010 pipe and take a deep deep drag. Smoke me, baby. You’re hot and you’re not broken.

(Oh, hey, and that 10 pounds? Stop treating yourself like a fat person and they’ll go away, too.)

Goodbye, Year of Suckage aka 2009.

Oh, not for me. I had a fabulous year. For you. I know how many of you have been sniveling about the various woes of 2009, and I know that you’re now looking forward to casting all that aside with one flip of a calendar page.

Well, hell. It ain’t that simple, baby. And yet it is.

Fine, Bitch. Explain yourself, wouldja?

No problem. I’m always happy to oblige.

1. It’s not that simple. So what was your beef about 2009?  It was a tough year for a lot of people. I don’t mean to say Quit your complaining, lots of people have it way worse than you, but I could say that. But it was a rough year. Not just from the economy tanking, people losing hope for change, foreclosures, homelessness, hunger, hopelessness, and litigious ex-husbands, no — there was a lot going on. On an energetic level. Woo-woo bullshit, the kind that’s real and smacks you in the ass.

You’re a sensitive person. You felt this. SMACK! You dug deep inside yourself and brought up all kinds of sewer sludge that now you’re wishing was still buried in there. And now you’re looking around helplessly, wondering what to do with all the shit inside you that you can no longer hide.

This is why it’s not so simple to change your outlook by changing the page of a calendar. Your shit travels with you.

2. It’s easy-peasy lemon-squeezie. Seriously, people, you’re making this way harder than it needs to be. So sure, you unearthed a bunch of nasty stuff and you can’t get rid of it. Right? Is this where we are now?

Fine. I’ll give away my secrets. Because I sort of like you.

Here it is. It’s in two parts, so pay attention. If you blink you’ll miss it.

A. Be open to the possibility that things can change for you in a way that’s easy and painless.

B. Then fucking forget about it.

Yeah, I’m serious about that last thing. Forget about it. Go on with your life. Let go of needing to let go. Take one step and then another. How many new-age platitudes do I need to roll out here, anyway? Just take a breath and do whatever you need to do in the next moment.

And if you do that? You are going to kick 2010’s ASS. I promise.

Now go. Kick some ass.

This morning, a random selection from the NAB Mailbag:

Dear New Age Bitch,

I read that our thoughts create our reality. And I’m really starting to believe it! Last Christmas, the Friday before when all the malls were like PACKED I started picturing a parking space opening up right next to the shopping cart return at Wal-Mart, just like I wanted, and it really happened! A green Escalade pulled out just as I got there and there was my space. I felt so awesome and powerful. Like, totally in the flow. I could do anything.

But now I’m afraid. I mean, if our thoughts really turn into something real, what about the bad thoughts? I don’t know how many times I told everyone that I wished my ex-boyfriend’s dick would fall off. But now he wants to get back together, and of course I’ll take him back (hey, he was “just experimenting,” at least that’s what he said, and I know he’s not really gay), but what about sex? I’m afraid I used my powers on him. And I want babies some day with him, a brother for little Zooey (what? I’m not a skank — we were on a BREAK), and I would feel so … responsible if his dick fell off. Can you help?

Horny and Confused

~~~

Dear Horny,

Dude. Number one — there is no such thing as “experimenting.” Your boyfriend’s either gay or he’s bi, and you need to face facts that he’s in denial about it. Also that he likes dick. And if he lies about this he’ll lie about anything. You want a baby with him? Whoa.

But let’s talk about what the universe can and can’t do.

1. The Universe isn’t a god. Okay, so you’ve turned away from childhood Lutheranism or whatever and you’ve embraced the New Age. You take yoga classes, you wear patchouli, well la di fucking da. But don’t expect to transfer over all your ideas of some white-dude god guy sitting up in a cloud somewhere in a flowing robe, looking down on you and determining your fate like a bearded Simon Cowell. The Universe has a consciousness — everything has a consciousness, even the cells of your hairy ass — but it’s not bestowing good stuff and bad stuff according to what list of Santa’s you’re on this year. So get over it.

2. What is the Universe? Simply the accumulation of everything within it. That’s right, everything you can see, hear, touch, taste, smell, and imagine is a part of the Universe. As is everything anyone can see, hear, touch, taste, smell, and imagine.

3. The Universe has no “powers” of its own. Anything the Universe does — and again, get away from the thought that it’s a standalone entity making life hell for you (or bestowing you with stuff like nine nubile virgins) — is a result of the collective or individual efforts of any part of the Universe.

4. Your thoughts aren’t what you think. Okay, so you thought about your boyfriend’s dick falling off. But you’re not that powerful — in order to “create your reality,” you first have to believe it. I mean really believe it. And there’s a part of you that doesn’t believe people’s dicks fall off just because someone imagines it happening. If that were true, you’d all live in a cartoon world with people’s heads being lopped off and anvils and grand pianos falling from high windowsills.  [NOTE: if that is your reality, please see me after class.]

5. Your thoughts are actually your core beliefs. It’s your inner core beliefs that actually create your reality. Say you’re imagining yourself with a million dollars. Fine. But if there’s a conflicting core belief, that for instance you have to pay a steep price for getting anything good in your life, then guess what? Either you’ll get that million dollars — and lose something really important to you at the same time — or (more likely), you’ll prevent yourself from having that million dollars at all, because you don’t believe it’s possible.

What about the parking space? Stuff like that is low risk. You can create parking spaces, turn red lights green, and little stuff like that all day because 1. there are no conflicting core beliefs and 2. it’s small stuff. Low risk. But manifesting a sparkly unicorn in your back yard? That would take undoing your beliefs that 1. unicorns don’t exist and 2. you can’t manifest animals or anything beyond a fucking Wal-Mart parking space.

My advice on creating your reality?

Sure, you can create stuff like cancer in yourself. People do it every day. But there’s no use obsessing over it. Instead, explore the core beliefs that you have. Like that bad stuff happens to you. Or that you’re not in control of your body. Or maybe that you just need a good rest. All those core beliefs can result in cancer — you just have to decide what you believe.

You can also make good stuff happen. People do this all the time, too. But they’ve examined and let go of conflicting core beliefs. Try this: think about something good that you want. Maybe it’s a house. And then start looking at everything that’s connected to that thought of having a house. Maybe you want to recreate your childhood home. Maybe you want to prove to your family that you’re not a deadbeat. Maybe you’re afraid of abandonment and figure that a big solid thing like a house can’t abandon you. Whatever it is, take it out and look at it. Otherwise you’re just spinning your wheels.

But STOP thinking things like, “The Universe wants me to learn this lesson.” The fucking Universe couldn’t care shit about your lessons. You do. You are creating your reality. Figure out what it is you really want and life gets much much easier.

We all have a friend like this. You know the one. Ditsy, big watery eyes, forever gazing up at the sky and sighing with apparent lack of brain function. And then looking at you earnestly, telling you that in order to be happy, you have to forgive yourself.

Excuse me? And WTF?

Forgive MYSELF? Dude. You don’t know who you’re dealing with here.

I have forever banned from my inbox one such chirpy optimist who sends out delightful email missives all too frequently, each one containing nuggets like, “As we bring our fears to the Light, to Source, fear cannot be sustained and it dissolves in the intensity of Love.”

Gag.

And this chirpy optimist (hey, nothing wrong with optimism — I practice it every time I exhale, trusting that I’m going to breathe in again) chirps about the beauty of forgiveness. As if this forgiveness is a magical state of enlightenment that we must all strive to attain.

Oh. That’s what you thought forgiveness was too, isn’t it? Something magical. That will solve all your problems.

Well, get over it. It’s not.

Forgiveness, simply put, is the act of releasing an energetic hold placed on another. This energetic hold arises when you look outside yourself for the source of pain or discomfort you feel inside. In other words, it starts with blame.

Hoo hah.

Oh, I forgot. You’re really good at blame.

In fact, 50% of you are really really good at blaming yourselves. For everything. And everything receives the same amount of blame. Burn the toast? “Oh, how horrible, my toastmaking skills suck, I FAIL!”  Encounter a red light on the way to work? “OMG I suck at driving, I’m going to be late, I should have taken a different street, I FAIL!” You’re a brain surgeon and you lose a patient? “I SUCK! I don’t have brains in my fingers! I should have been an electrician! I FAIL!”

And while that’s entertaining — watching people self-flagellate and cry Glenn Beck-style Vicks Vaporub-enhanced crocodile tears while tearing out their hair and gouging their eyes out with a spork — it’s nowhere near as fun as what the other 50% of you do, which I call The Dance of Blame. Burn the toast? “You SUCK! Why’d you buy this toaster anyhow! What a stupid toaster! Who the fuck wants toast anyhow!” Red light on the way to work? “STUPID LIGHT! Hey! Fuckhead! Yeah, you! If you actually drove the fucking SPEED LIMIT we would not all be here waiting at this fucking LIGHT!” Failed brain surgeon? “STUPID FUCK! He just HAD to go in for fucking surgery, the asshole, and then STOP BREATHING on my table! HOW DARE HE DIE! Doesn’t deserve to live!”

And while blame can be really really entertaining (a national pastime, really), let’s not forget it’s just one piece of this forgiveness bullshit. That’s right, in order to “forgive” yourself you first have to go into Blame Mode and get all weepy and berate yourself for not taking enough Me Time.

Ew. That just feels crappy, doesn’t it?

And in order to forgive OTHERS — well, seriously, why would you want to? If you’re a blame-everyone-else kind of person, then releasing your hold on that blame isn’t going to be easy. You LIKE blaming. It’s part of the empty shell of identity you’ve crafted around yourself. Think you’ll give that up easily, just because some New Age shithead tells you that you won’t be happy until you forgive everyone on a very long list of people you’ve ever known? Hardly.

So now what?

The Bitch has the answer.

To start off, own your shit.

That’s right, own it. You’re a blamer? Do it loud and proud. But don’t take yourself too seriously, because everyone around you knows you’re full of shit. Blame yourself continually? Then go over the top with it. “OH MY GOD THE TOAST IS BURNED! MY LIFE IS OVER! KILL ME NOW!” People will also know you’re full of shit and begin to ignore you, as they should, instead of rushing to your aid. Owning your self-blame is actually more difficult than owning your blaming of others, because socially, we reward self-blamers. But get over it and just be dramatic. Enjoy it.

Next step. After you totally own your blame, ask yourself this question:

Can I, at least for right now, let go of this stupid-ass grudge I’ve been holding for the past 8 years and pretend it never happened? Just for now?

If the answer in your head comes back “Yes,” then do it. Let it go. You’re not obligating yourself to forever. It’s just for that moment.

If the answer in your head comes back “No,” ask it why the fuck not! Ask it why you’re insisting on being a total douche, and remind that fucking voice that we’re talking about just for a moment — a nanosecond — and what the fuck is so scary about that? And then challenge that fucking voice to a face fish-slapping duel if it won’t listen and fucking let go for like a SECOND.

And forget about forgiving. And get on with your life.

Oh, you gotta love Wal-Mart. I know I do. After all, the smell — it’s the same in every store, trust me, The Bitch has done her research — is addictive, kind of like the secret 361 unpronounceable ingredients in every Happy Meal that keep you coming back for more. That smell wafts out through the auto-opening doors (because, ya know, we’re too lazy to actually pull open a door ourselves and instead will LINE UP behind the automatic doors to get inside with the least amount of effort possible), hitting you with a hot, oppressive wave of low expectation. The smell of Wal-Mart reeks with the stench of failure and hopelessness. Like an Atlantic City casino, except with more lighting.

And the people of Wal-Mart, well they’re just all kinds of awesome. Take Robert Stephens, for example (he’s the friendly-looking dude in the photo — charming, isn’t he?), the 61-year old guy who just had it with someone else’s crying toddler in a Georgia Wal-Mart, threatened to shut her up, then later delivered four or five whacks to ensure that she did.

Astoundingly (or maybe not, because people suck), some people are calling for a variety of actions:

1. KILL THE DUDE! STRING HIM UP BY HIS BALLS!

2. What kind of parent lets her kid scream in a Wal-Mart, for chrissakes? Go after the mom, it’s clearly her fault!

3. The race thing (eye roll, because you know this guy would have slapped a crying baby giraffe — let alone a kid ‚ black or white — but it happened in Georgia, after all, and since when does Georgia think it’s a crime to whack a little black kid?).

4. Can’t even comment on this, but the title (“Older Gentleman Politely Slaps Stranger’s Crying Baby at Walmart”) and the name of the blog (Christwire.org: Conservative Values for an Unsaved World) are not only big hints but also serve as their own punch lines. WTF?

Last year I had the pleasure to be on an airplane to somewhere. In the back. You know, in steerage. Where the seatback in front of you touches your knees and where you are breathing the person six seats away from you and where the permanent odor of airplane fuel makes your head pound and where you suddenly have an understanding of what it’s like being a cow on a cattle care bound for slaughter and you decide to become a vegetarian on the spot, that is, if you make it out alive. And there was a kid just in front of me. Who screamed. For two hours. His mother, clearly having already lost the power of hearing from having six months before jabbed a fork into her temple thus bursting her eardrum and rendering her into blessed silence, ignored him entirely. He beat his little fists on her, raised the window shade up and down and up and down, and poked his grubby little hand between the seats at me. While screaming.

I sent him psychic darts to explode his little brain and render him unconscious.

As we began our descent, the screamer fell asleep. The entire steerage section relaxed as one. The sky looked bluer. The air smelled less like body odor and the disinfectant used in the toilets. All was well.

And then the little fiend woke up. And started screaming again. And people started looking around for objects — blunt, sharp, whatever — with which to commit seppuku.

I blame the mother. Clearly, she had given up. She let this little tyrant rule not only her, but an entire airplane full of people. It’s not hard to keep a kid occupied on a flight, unless the kid is sick, in which case there’s duct tape and drugs. And if it’s not manipulation and is just a case of not caring about the kid, why not sell him? All sorts of people want to buy kids these days.

I blame the flight attendants. Give the kid a coloring book, or cheap plastic wings to poke his eye out with or something. Make the airplane land in Kansas City and have everyone deplane. Deploy the tranquilizer blow dart gun. Something. But ignoring a screaming kid is ignoring the other 200 passengers.

I blame the kid. Because it’s not that enjoyable to scream for two hours unless you’re paying someone to make you do it. Find something else to do.

I blame the passengers. Not me, of course — I was sending psychic darts, remember? But people look away when there’s a problem. Look away enough and some whack-job like Mr. Wal-Mart Slappy gets involved, and then there’s trouble.

Which brings me back to the Wal-Mart whack-job. Lots of all up-in-yo-face mommas are leavin’ comments all up in yo ass like “If he tried that with my kid I WOULD HAVE KICKED HIS BALLS UP INTO HIS ASS,” and “I would put the beat down on him,” and “He’d be on his way to the morgue if he even flicked a finger at my child.” Way to go, people! Like hitting the old guy is a solution. About as good a solution as hitting the screaming kid was. I’ll bet I know how you handle the discipline at your house!

No, that’s not the answer. But The Bitch has an answer. You want the Short-Term Solution or the Long-Term Solution?

Fine, you can’t decide. I’m feeling generous so you can have them both.

Short-Term Solution for Screaming Wal-Mart Kids

Leave the store. How badly did you need that beef jerky and those Chee-tos, anyway? Also, earplugs. Or, hello, examine why you shop there to begin with. I mean, look deep into your soul and say, “Wal-Mart, how much do I need your soul-sucking presence in my life?”

Long-Term Solution for Screaming Wal-Mart Kids

Once everyone is inside, seal the doors. Identify all the kids. Sedate and tag them with an invisible chip that injects a small amount of a nerve agent that causes temporary paralysis whenever a certain decibel level is reached. Erase the parents’ memories and implant in their brains the ability to parent with the least amount of stupidity possible (results vary). Then, implant a chip inside each employee that causes them, on the store’s anniversary, to appear on the front steps of the Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters and to sing “Feelings” until every employee is paid a fair wage and receives health benefits.

Gives Wal-Mart’s slogan, “Save money. Live better,” a whole new meaning.